Pinkeye

Pinkeye

If your overall health is in the pink, your eyeballs shouldn't be. But when you have an allergic reaction to something--pollen, cosmetics, chlorine in a swimming pool or even substances in the air--or when you come in contact with someone who has an eye infection, the white portion of your eyes can suddenly turn (ugh!) the color of Malibu Barbie's Corvette. As if that weren't bad enough, your eyes can be itchy and irritated; in some cases, there may also be a discharge of pus or fluid around the eyes.

All because of conjunctivitis, or pinkeye, a highly bothersome but usually relatively harmless inflammation of the surface of the eye. Aside from your own allergic reaction, you can get pinkeye from irritants in your environment, such as chemicals, or as the result of casual contact with someone who's infected. So you can get pinkeye by using the same towel as someone who's infected or even by touching the person's hands and then rubbing your eyes. That's one reason why conjunctivitis is especially common in children. Usually the inflammation will disappear on its own within 48 hours. But here's how to quicken your recovery and ease your discomfort.

Don't cover your eye. Covering your sore eye is perhaps the worst thing you can do when you have pinkeye. "Putting a covering or patch over the eye--which, believe it or not, is actually a fairly common practice--raises the temperature of the eye, and those little buggers causing conjunctivitis grow faster in a warm environment," says Merrill M. Knopf, M.D., an ophthalmologist in Long Beach, California, and an officer of the California Association of Ophthalmology. "Besides that, a patch interferes with the flushing mechanism of tears, which removes the waste products. It's much better to leave the eye exposed."

Try two minutes of shut-eye. If you use over-the-counter eye drops to soothe the itch, keep your eyes shut for at least two minutes after applying the drops, suggests Major William White, M.D., oculoplastic surgeon at Brook Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. That's because when your eyes remain open, you blink--and blinking can wash away medication. But use eyedrops sparingly: Using them for more than three days can be counterproductive and can actually induce redness.

Apply a compress. Place a warm compress over your eye for ten minutes three or four times a day to soothe your inflamed peeper, suggests Robert Petersen, M.D., director of the Eye Clinic at Childrens Hospital in Boston. Covering the eye briefly does not mean leaving on the compress. But if your eye itches and a warm compress doesn't work, Dr. Knopf suggests trying a cool compress.

Wash your hands--again and again. "Soap kills bacteria and viruses that cause pinkeye," notes Dr. Knopf. "Wash your hands as often as you can to prevent aggravating your own case and prevent spreading it to others." Frequent washing is important, because people touch their eyes more often than they might suspect.

Get grown-up help with baby shampoo. Although not advised for children, here's a solution for adults with a lot of discharge: Make a solution of one part baby shampoo to ten parts warm water. Dip a sterile cotton ball in the solution, and while keeping the eye closed, use it to clean off crusty eyelashes, advises Peter Hersh, M.D., chairman of ophthalmology at the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center in New York City. Another alternative for adults is an over-the-counter product called Eye-Scrub that works the same way.